


Reasons

by RaspberryHeaven



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Dopplegangers, Found Family, Gen, In soma veritas, Probably a bit nihilistic, Thievery and gunslinging and conversation, Xenon base, and at least I believe in the power of friendship, budding friendship, but no more so than the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 04:25:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7998535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaspberryHeaven/pseuds/RaspberryHeaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone needs a reason to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reasons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tish/gifts).



“Are you a thief or not? I thought you said you could open anything.”

Vila had spent too much time with Avon to be provoked into hurrying by such an amateur attempt, even if Soolin was considerably easier on the eye. She was leaning half over him, her long sheet of golden hair shifting distractingly as her head tracked from side to side, gun held lightly in her hand. 

There was an easy, comfortable familiarity with the way she held it that made him internally shudder a little, thinking of the bodies they had left on the way. Obviously, Federation guards were bad people who were trying to kill them, so it was acceptable to shoot them, but he was too aware of how readily an accident of grading could make you a killer for the Federation. He didn’t like to think of guards afraid to meet every day, or of families and friends left behind.

To Soolin, the guards were all too obviously just targets.

“You can’t rush genius, you know,” he said, defaulting to good-humoured peevishness to avoid thinking about uncomfortable things. “This is top Federation technology.”

“If it was too hard for you, you should have just said so in the first place.”

There. That was it. The way in. His nimble fingers moved with barely conscious prompting from his brain, and there was that familiar rush of endorphins to his brain as the lock gave way, and the box opened. The trickier the box, the bigger the rush. These were the sparkling moments of his life, when he’d solved the puzzle, and the treasure was revealed…

“It’s empty?” he said in disbelief. “You made me risk my life and sneak out without Avon’s permission for an empty box?” And all the dead people, he thought but didn’t say.

“What is he, your father?” Soolin smiled at the box, with odd satisfaction. “It’s what I expected to find.”

“So what is it?

“A reason to live.” She closed the empty box and slipped it into a bag around her shoulders. "So of course it was empty."

“Do you have to be so depressing?”

“Come on, let’s go back to Xenon Base.” He went with her. There was no choice. Even if she had not, at any point, said thank you.

Soolin was no Blake. But then, there was no Blake, and the universe was colder for it.

* * *

The puzzle of the box stayed with him. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that an empty box would be set under heavy Federation guard, or with a tricky lock like that.

He didn’t obviously attempt to get Soolin alone. After all, she was pretty much a stranger still, and her relationship to the group tenuous at best. But he was good at being just where he wanted to be without making any apparent effort, and there came a time when she was sitting reading, and he was there. 

“Want some?”

She looked up, maybe half irritated, but not really. “Some what?”

“A reason to live.” He held out a glass of adrenaline and soma.

“Now, _that’s_ depressing.” She accepted the glass, however, and put down the document, which he took as a tacit offer of company. 

He shrugged and took a seat next to her, spreading his weight easily, relaxed. No threat at all. He allowed her to take a few sips, inhibitions retreating, before he spoke again. He lifted his own glass to his lips noisily once or twice, but very little of the liquid passed between them.

“So what other purpose do you need?” he asked, eventually. “Booze, money, riches? Handsome men in furs? Or women?” he added, because Soolin may have been Dorian’s companion, but that didn't necessarily mean much. She didn’t exactly seem to be mourning. “Revenge against the Federation?”

To his surprise she took it seriously, green-grey eyes looking levelly at him over the glass. “I have no particular quarrel with the Federation. They’re vile, but they’re not the ones I needed revenge against.”

Not a Federation citizen, but he had guessed that. Her accent was educated, but she had neither the unconscious ability to suck all the attention in the room of an Alpha grade like Blake or the slightly defensive arrogance of a second-best Beta like Avon. Her hair and makeup were always carefully done, as if she was presenting herself on a marriage market rather than as a mercenary. Careful, that was it. Alphas didn’t need to be careful. Some different form of privilege in her background, then. “Who are the targets for your revenge, then?” Casual as possible, trying to sound slightly drunk and not overwhelmingly curious.

“Dead, naturally.” She pushed back a golden strand of hair. “That’s the problem with revenge as purpose for life. Eventually you either are dead yourself, or you achieve it. I was done by the time I was a teenager.”

“To be the best?” He glanced at the gun hanging at her hip.

“As I said, done by the time I was a teenager.”

“I understand. Tragedy of my own life.” He refilled both their glasses. “So what now? What’s your story?”

“What makes you think I have one?”

He looked at her, beautiful and intelligent and deadly and for all intents and purposes alone and friendless in the universe, and decided he didn’t know where to start. He took a draught of adrenaline and soma, for real this time, and so did she.

“So why did you join us, then?”

“Why did you?” she challenged. “Surely you would be safer back on the Federation. Plenty of comforting drugs to keep you wrapped up and give you a purpose for life there,” she added, casting a contemptuous look at his drink.

“It’s not so much of a bargain being a Federation citizen in the service grades.”

“It’s not so much of a bargain being outside the Federation, either.” The drink was definitely loosening her tongue a little. 

“Besides… criminal tendencies. They tried, you know. Psychiatrists, doctors, surgeons… I suppose I’m just a hopeless case.” He grinned at her. “Born bad. I can’t help it.”

She looked back at him, and perhaps it was his imagination, but those pale lovely eyes were a little bleary. Or perhaps his eyes were just blurred. He'd drunk more than he meant to.“Why would they spend all that time and money trying to reform a service grade? Why not just get rid of you?”

“Ah, now, that’s the question. I suppose I was an interesting case.”

She pursed her lips, obviously not quite convinced. “But I wouldn’t think being treated as Avon’s personal service grade was much of a bargain, either. Why not pull one last heist and vanish, if you’re such a brilliant criminal?”

 _That_ , actually, was the question. “They’re my friends, and they need me.”

“Friends?” There was blank disbelief in her voice, and he wanted to protest, but the names that came to his mind-- _Gan, Cally, Jenna, Blake_ \--were no defence at all. 

“Dayna’s a nice kid," he said at last. "A bit violent, but she’s all right. Tarrant, yeah, well, he can’t help being a bit of a bully, Star Academy does that to you. That’s why I didn’t join.” Soolin scoffed little under her breath, but he ignored her. “He’s a decent kid underneath. Avon…”

“Avon?” Perhaps he imagined a quick, interested jerk of her head.

Avon was too complicated to talk about, especially when tipsy. “We understand each other. I’d trust him not to throw me out of an airlock, anyway. So long as I’m useful to him.”

“And that’s your definition of a friend? Now, that’s _really_ depressing.”

She stood to leave. “Hey, Soolin?”

“Yes, Vila?” She paused, poised and polite.

“What was in that box?”

“I told you. Nothing.” She smiled. “My purpose in life.”

The doors whirred shut behind her. There was more adrenaline and soma left in her glass than he expected. And rather less in his.

He let the comforting warmth of it swell through him, and closed his eyes.

* * *

“Soolin, wake up!” He hammered on her door until it slid open.

“For heaven’s sake, Vila, I’m not that desperate!” Even at this hour, her hair was neat, carefully braided against the night. “You’re drunk. Go back to bed. Alone.”

“I can’t. There’s someone in my room.”

“Is that really such a novelty?” Her lips twitched.

“It’s you!”

She didn’t seem as surprised as she should have been, under the circumstances. “In _your_ room? That’s interesting.” She smiled brightly. “So why did you come to me for help? Why did you expect me to be here, if I’m there?”

“It’s you, but it’s not you! And—she asked me to get you!”

“Of course she did.” Soolin patted the gun at her hip. “Come on. Let’s go see what she wants.”

“Oh, no. She was scary.”

“So am I. Come on, you’ve got me on your side. Better than against you.” She patted his shoulder, and he didn’t feel like he had any choice but to follow.

The door to his room slid open, and then things happened quickly, too quickly for even his agile mind to fully comprehend. to fast for him, to register. Two Soolins, smiling at each other like old friends they were glad to see. He thought they were extending their arms to each other, to embrace--like sisters, perhaps, with glad recognition, yet instead there was a flash of fire and one of the Soolins was lying dead on the ground, a welcoming smile still on her lips and a hole burned in her chest. A gun in her hand.

He yelped, confused at the sight of Soolin's death. Not _his_ Soolin, as he found himself thinking of her. The one in his room. But Soolin still, to all appearances, young and vulnerable looking and undeniably dead.

“How disappointing.” His Soolin looked genuinely sad as she put her gun back in its holster. “I expected her to be faster on the draw. Come on, I need your help disposing of the body.”

"Oh, no…”

“Vila, if you don’t help me, I’m going to disappear into the night and not come back, and then you will have to explain to your friends why my cooling body is lying in your room. Should be an interesting conversation. What attitude do Tarrant and Dayna take to men who lure young girls to their room and then murder them?"

He shuddered with distaste, but he helped her lug the body out of the base, disabling the security systems so as not to wake the others. It was incredibly revolting, and weirdly grief-inducing, to carry the body of this pretty young girl, who he had shared adrenaline and soma with… but no, _that_ girl was walking ahead of him, cool as a cucumber, long braid swinging.

They weighted the body with rocks, lowered it into a stream, and returned to the base without speech. He knew it would contaminate the water, but he didn't say anything. Maybe it would just vanish into nothingness, too. They didn't go back to their own rooms. Soolin made Vila up a big drink, and he sucked it in willingly.

“Better?” She asked it quite brusquely, as if she didn't much care, but somehow the asking helped him perk up almost as much as the adrenaline in his glass did.

“I think I deserve an explanation. Who was that? Your clone?” Thinking of Cally.

“Not a person, just technology. It was what was in the box.” She leaned on the back of his chair, as if she didn't want him to see her expression, but close to him regardless. He was oddly grateful. “A Federation weapon.” She paused. “Something that could possibly outshoot me.”

He took a bigger gulp. “Your reason for living.”

“Yes.” 

“Depressing.”

“I suppose so.”

“So now what?”

She shrugged. “I stay with my new friends. Seems to be at least a chance of finding someone who can best me. You could use my gun. And who knows, I might just enjoy the ride.”

"Until you die in a hail of gunfire?

"Everyone needs a goal in life."

He let himself sink into the adrenaline-and-soma, letting it fade away the image of Soolin’s corpse, her youth and vibrancy reduced to a… thing. He didn’t deserve to see that, no one did.

Soolin stayed with him quite a while. He was slipping off into a booze-induced nap when she finally moved, and he heard rather than felt the touch on his forehead, smoothing back thinning hair.

“Thanks, friend,” she whispered as she left, and that was more surprising, somehow, than the caress.

He went to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for giving me a reason to revisit my oldest fandom, and my two favourite characters from it. I hope you enjoy this at least half as much as I enjoyed writing it.


End file.
